For all his attempts to make himself appear to be a man that respects our nation’s history and the foundations on which it is built, President Barack Obama routinely falls short. Most recently was his recital of the Gettysburg Address in which he omits ‘under God.’
Today is the 150th anniversary of the day President Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address. While not largely well-received at the time, the words have taken a place in our nation’s conscience second only to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
To commemorate the anniversary, filmmaker Ken Burns recorded all living U.S. presidents as well as celebrities and other luminaries to recite those inspiring words.
Obama was asked and agreed to recite a version of the address which omits the phrase ‘under God.’ This despite the fact that contemporary accounts from the day by media clearly reported that the phrase was uttered by President Lincoln.
This is not the first time Obama has omitted acknowledgement of Our Creator. Three years ago when discussing the Declaration of Independence, he omitted the key acknowledgement of God that is contained in the opening words of that revered document.
The Gettysburg Address:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
